Rothwell In-Line Attenuators

I have (sorry, had) a bit of a gain issue (too much) on my valve preamp. All the volume was in the first 1/4 turn. In addition I had a tranny hum - which I couldnt get rid of. Was audible about 2 foot from speakers.

Anyway, was browsing through a hifi mag the other day and stumbled across an ad for Rothwell In-line attenuators. The text of the ad seem to paraphrase my symptoms almost verbatim. I hadn't heard of these things before and there are probably gizmos out there that do the same thing - I didn't look.

Having spent a few $K recently on a lot of new kit, I thought the 39 pounds asking price wasn't a lot to pay if they did what they claimed.

So I ordered them last Sunday arvo from the UK, they arrived on my desk in Australia before lunch yesterday. Plugged them in this morning.

Best 39 pounds I have spent. Tranny hum is all but gone. I have to stick my ear next to the cabinet to hear anything. And the volume control now works like it should.

I don't know what's inside them or how they work - don't care. They just work.

I'm a little sceptical when I read such claims in print I must confess, but when I find a product that does exactly what it claims, I think it deserves a plug. http://www.rothwellaudioproducts.co.uk/html/attenuators.html. As always YMMV.

BTW the 39 pounds included shipping via airmail (or space shuttle or what ever they used to get them here so quickly).

goldenjacks attenuaters very good as well

I've had very acceptable results using Goldenjacks (www.goldenjacks.com).
In addition to being considerably cheaper, they are available in-6, -10, and -14db, they are available in two "directionalites", i.e: signal entering female side, or entering male end, and they have threaded barrels that tighten the gold plated male end positively to its partner.

I also had a gain issue with a new CD player that had no output level control, the one it replaced did have a level control and I had experienced no problems until connecting the new player up. The position of the amplifier volume control was different to other inputs, which was annoying when switching between inputs, and also the sound from the new CD player was 'strained' and the imaging wasn't as pleasing as I thought it should be. I knew that the CD player was swamping the input of the amplifier as I had bought a cheap pair of in-line attenuators - which solved the issues, but were poor quality and fell apart after a couple of months.

So, determined to put the issues to bed, I bought a pair of the Rothwell attenuators (10dB) they arrived quickly, and I connected them up, problem solved, super quality, so none of this 'falling apart' nonsense - I think I have had them for the best part of a year now, a very good purchase IMO. These attenuators are also available as 'standard' or 'source' types (I ordered 'source') a valuable option where space is difficult.

Last week I installed these Rothwell attenuators between my Yamaha NP-S303 network player and NAD C356BEE integrated amp and I am very happy. I had the problem that the music was already too loud with the volume control between the seven and eight o'clock position. Due to this, the amp's remote control was also useless: effectively you only had two flavours: inaudible or too loud. Actually, I had gradually started wondering why LP playback, with the T1210, Nagaoka MP15 and Rega Fono MM sounded nicer and so much less 'stressed' than digital playback. With vinyl I had to turn the volume further up than with digital sources. Would that be the key?
This lead me to thinking about the Rothwells.
With the Rothwells in place, this volume problem is now solved and the sound of the system is much more relaxed and musical. Even the stereo imaging has improved, it seems. This is not so strange as a volume control does not work at its best when it is always close to the 'zero' position. I must say I was a bit hesitant to add something in the signal way but I am happy with the improvement. It really takes some getting used to: initially, when you have to turn the amp much further open to hear the music at a sensible volume, you get the feeling that 'something is not right' as the signal appears weaker and unconsciously, we think that louder is better (just like when we compare loudspeakers at the hi-fi shop - the loudest one in the lineup initially seems the best). Give it a few days and you'll appreciate (although the effect may depend on the system of course). They fit well with the Van den Hul The Bay C5 interconnect, but due to the shape, not all plugs may be a good match, physically.

I am not claiming that the attenuators do add something to the sound, or that they take away anything, it is just that they help the volume control work more nicely (perhaps avoiding some distortion or channel imbalance that is more apparent around a volume control's lowest settings than around its +/- nine o'clock position). For me, a clear improvement and a cost-effective upgrade.

In addition to the above benefits, my in-line attenuators lined up all my sources at nearly equal levels that were coincident and at full volume, you can't blow my speakers, just your ears!